


relative minima

by kalypsobean



Category: Gabriel (2007)
Genre: Angels, Gen, sensation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:22:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21943564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	relative minima

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roguefaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguefaerie/gifts).



Falling is the first thing an angel feels.

It's more than that; more than the air rushing over actual skin, more than the odd sense of being cushioned and buffeted, or a thousand tiny hairs standing up as if electricity crackled around him. That isn't even new, though he's only felt it once before, and then he didn't know what it was, or the words for it, or that it was the sensation of falling and not being unused to a fragile human body, so alive and aware with an entire age's worth of feeling compressed into a short-lived and vulnerable creature, incapable of natural stillness and yet with only a finite reserve. 

It is more than all that; it is suddenly feeling want and hunger and pain and confusion and a type of not knowing, a lack of certainty borne from having choices that are unknown and unquantifiable after simply never having them. It is a gradual awareness of a creeping shadow that isn't darkness but isn't light, made from chaos and untamed possibility and the edge of an uncrossable void.

He can't die here.

***

Michael's power is alien under his skin; it twists and flows like warmth spreading through his veins while his chest is still cold, numb to ice and fire. He can't reach it; it doesn't respond to him, doesn't curl around his fingertips and wait to be used, doesn't respond when he screams, crackling and charging the way his did. He's still empty, disconnected; he's clumsy and slow and small. It's as if Michael's power is a hug, surrounding him with the assurance of something he used to have being promised again; it still holds him upright, it still buoys him and drives him, but it isn't within him, part of him, of him.

"Is this what You wanted?" he screams, knowing the answer will be silence, as for all that Michael had given him, the sense of purpose, the absolute certainty that he is God's chosen and his cause is just, that whisper of knowledge that his faith is true has left him. Michael took it with his heart, and no amount of forgiveness can restore it, or fill that empty little space that gapes far more than his wounds ever did. 

He cannot die here, but he cannot stay; the weaknesses of humanity cloud his mind and threaten to fall on him until he cannot rise, and Michael's power is no protection. 

Gabriel falls, again.

***

This time he expects it, the helplessness; he relaxes and focuses on the air, letting it control him instead of fighting it, looking for something familiar to hold on to as the sky clears and the ground beckons. He feels ... is it weightless? He can't name it, the momentary sensation that he is as he was, uncontained, before the sun is obscured by the buildings and shadow envelops him with an unlooked for coolness that brings with it all the pain he's never had the chance to know.

He wonders if falling was the right thing, if leaving this world without the protection of an Arc will cause it to revert, to fall back into war and the souls within without hope of redemption. That would be his burden to bear, his failure. He cannot protect them, not like this, with his power exhausted and his heart brittle, unpredictable, unshielded. It would be his fault because it is a job that he simply cannot do, and nobody else to do it. He would fall and be an outcast, forever outside the Light. 

He doesn't know how Lucifer can stand it, though he almost feels he understands, now, why Lucifer chose that, to be without his grace, to not bear the burden of many on his own, to question and doubt and turn away. But to feel like this all the time, with so many thoughts and no way to still them; he wonders how far away the ground is, how is it that he is both falling and not, outside of time, how it is that he can think so clearly and know nothing and still fear nudges at his spine, kissing the back of his neck like a cool wind that carries sea air and a hint of a world he can never see or touch or know.

He's almost grateful when the world dulls and his mind grows quiet, the thoughts fading to a jumble that he can't put words to for they're just out of reach, twisting and pressing on each other until they're amorphous and grey and small, like the last of the clouds being burned to a haze by the Light. He isn't grateful for the pain, the nausea building in his stomach until he starts coughing, a thing that involuntarily wracks his body and sends a sharp sting through each joint, as if they had never been used and were being yanked into place. He tries to reach for Michael's power, to still the worst of it, and he feels nothing; the pain is there, his mind is cloudy and he can't seem to think beyond the pain, making it stop. 

"Hey, buddy, you okay?" He doesn't know the voice, it could be someone, or anyone, or no one. He nods, and wishes very hard to be left alone; as if being addressed had unlocked it somehow, the noises of this world seem to all start and rise at once and he can no longer pick anything out, or filter them, or understand them; they're loud and constant and cacophonous and when Gabriel opens his eyes, he sees they belong to a shabby street under a grey-blue sky, to hundreds of people, to cars and speakers and flashing lights and things he doesn't recognise.

He tries to spread his wings and finds he no longer has them. The cool breeze on his skin is made so by bleeding that doesn't stop.

The only thought he can keep hold of is _I have to find her_ , as if the last gift his Father gave him is the knowledge that Amitiel, too, is here somewhere, in this human world.

***

Falling is the first thing an angel feels, and the last.


End file.
